Royal Prick (A Stepbrother Romance #2)(75)

“His phone is going straight to voicemail, and he never shuts the thing off.” I was suspicious of a lot of things, and Viviana was right at the f*cking top of that list.

“Hold on, let me call my mom.” Noelle ran to the bedroom to get her phone leaving me to stand in the kitchen, drowning in my own emotions. I had the girl, and I had my feelings in check. I just needed to calm the hell down. I could hear Noelle’s sing song voice down the hall. She was already on the phone with her mother and from the sound of it, things weren’t going good.

“As a mother it’s your duty, hell it should be engraved in your heart to care for your child,” Noelle argued. I wanted to tell her there was no point, but I stopped myself. I needed to let Noelle do this. After all, it wasn’t my mother, and it wasn’t my wasted words. Noelle would always have a choice when she was with me.

Noelle took in a deep breath blowing it out her nose. I could see whatever her mother was saying was just dousing the already hot flames that poured from her with more fuel.

“You lied about everything. Now you claim you wish you aborted me. Come on, come up with something a little bit more believable… And you wonder why I believe them when they say you were just after Mark’s money.” There was more arguing on the other end of the line, a constant ringing of a scream that pierced my ears. I couldn’t make out what she was saying through it though.

“I’m done. Done with all of it. I love you, but you’re toxic. Living with you is like having your head constantly held under water. I feel like I drowning when I’m around you. It’s a struggle I no longer want to face every day anymore. I’m almost an adult, and I’m capable of making my own choices. I’ve made the decision to stay out here with Royal and Olivia.” I cringed as Noelle’s eyes snapped to mine.

“I’m not listening to it.” I could hear the endless assault of hateful words being lashed out at Noelle, and I had to make them stop. She was mine to protect now and no one would hurt her ever again.

Before I could grab the phone, Noelle hung up pressing the bright red end key. My world ended and started with his woman. Without thought I cradled her to my chest, only pulling back so that I could press my lips to her throat and whispered a sorry just loud enough that she could hear it. Her mother was hurting her and therefore she was hurting me.

“Don’t be. It’s not you that said those words. It’s not you that does nothing but lash out in hate. It’s not you that’s constantly trying to hurt me.” The pain she was feeling flooded me, sweeping through my body in waves. I wanted to take her in my arms, wrap her in bubble wrap, and hide her from the rest of the world.

“Still I’m sorry. I’ll be the one to say sorry for her, because she will never see a fault in the things she did. I would still hate her, even if she didn’t f*ck up my childhood. Simply because she has hurt you and keeps hurting you.” I couldn’t hide the honesty or the way I was feeling. The truth was, Noelle had it way worse than I ever did growing up. My father might have been absent from my life, but I still had my mother who loved and cared for me. I didn’t have someone like Viviana constantly hating me for the person I was, wanting to change every single thing about me, because I didn’t live up to her expectations.

“Sometimes home has a heartbeat, Royal. You’re my heart. My everything. My all. I love you to the ends of the Earth and back again.” The air around me shifted as she expelled the words. She hadn’t said it yet, even though I knew how she felt about me. I held her to my chest, reminding myself of why I hated her in the beginning. She wasn’t better than me. She was the same as me. We were just two lost souls trying to find one another.

So I said the words that told her I all along.

“I already know.” Then I sealed it with a kiss.

Noelle was my princess.

My love.

My existence.





Chapter Thirty-Two


-Noelle


You know that feeling you get when you fall off of a bike for the first time after just getting your training wheels taken off? The way your hands ache as they skid across the rough ground, or maybe the scrapes and never ending bumps and bruises that come with learning to ride that bike?

When I pictured my mom, I pictured that bike. Some of us were good at riding, some of us enjoyed riding, and others just hated it. I was one of those people that hated it, and my mom was the bike, always breaking down, and always causing me to crash into shit. She was the reason for all the scrapes and bruises I had, and for every minuscule amount of pain I’ve endured.

Still the bruises healed. The scraps turned into scabs and then eventually disappeared, leaving no sign of them ever being there in the first place. I could feel it the minute I cut my mom off from my life that all of that pain was going away. The hurt from her words lessened. It wasn’t me that was at fault for all the hateful things she did. No, she did most of those things before I was ever even born. It was instilled in her to be as she was, and nothing not even her own daughter being born would or could change that.

“It’s not like I meant to come out here uninvited, Olivia.” Mark’s voice shattered my internal thoughts. The reason he failed to answer his phone was apparently because he was on a plane on his way out here to check on me.

“You know I’m not comfortable with any of this,” Olivia said, clearly aggravated with Mark being here. I understood that irritation. She still loved Mark, and having him here would only agitate those feelings more. It was like rubbing salt over an open wound. It hurt.